Eat the Cupcake

Eat the Cupcake

December 2009

Despite my pledge to consume modest quantities of sugar this holiday season, I grabbed a cupcake on my way out of a holiday party last week. To me, the entire point of cake is frosting, so I was oh so happy to find that this was a frosting-filled cupcake, SusieCakes' signature. It was like a Paula Deen dream - sugar with a pound of butter and a splash of vanilla.

Halfway to my next engagement, which was also about halfway through the cupcake, I was still arguing with myself. I'll just have a bit, a bite, just half of it. And then I got my wits about me. Just shut up and enjoy the dang cupcake! And I did. And it was good.

The holidays are a great time to reconnect with friends and former colleagues through parties, networking events or greeting cards. I've made at least 10 new contacts myself already this month.

But if you are tempted to just let the month of December wash over you, at least enjoy it. Or consider this: put in some good short-term efforts on your personal marketing, then reward yourself with some holiday cheer.

Wishing you a peaceful holiday season filled with good food, good friends and great fun.

Take Stock | Give Credit

It may have been a tough year, but take credit for what you did well. Your bank account may not be overflowing, but you may have accomplished a lot more than you thought. Among the difficulties, many people have found resilience and talents they didn't even know they had.

One of my clients found that a year of unemployment made her more valuable than she was at her last job. She spent the year wrangling all sorts of freelance work and, in turn, learned new skills, gained a fresh perspective on her industry, and discovered she was more resourceful than she knew.

Consider these questions as a way of giving yourself credit:

What did I do this year that I never thought I'd be able to do?
What did I do this year that I never wanted to do, but it turned out okay?

The end of the year is a good time to take stock of how things really went in 2009. Give yourself a pat on the back for your achievements, small and large. It's a great way to encourage you to do even more things well next year.

Wallow Time

I'm no Pollyanna. I don't believe in pretending everything is great when it's not. In fact, I am a fan of what I call wallow time.

Barbara Ehrenreich's book debunking the positive-thinking movement may have come at just the right time in our history, when people are tired of being told to just be positive and everything will be okay.

Let's face it: Losing your job sucks. Losing clients sucks. Losing your house sucks. It just does. That's a fact. And everyone is entitled to go through the grieving process.

But make it a process, not a destination. The trick is to know when to stop wallowing and when to start doing something to deal with the new reality.

In my June newsletter on the book Deep Survival, I wrote about the first rule of survival: Be Here Now. Okay. It's tough. But what am I going to do with this?

The good news is, you get to hit the reset button as often as you need to. Sometimes that's every day. Sometimes it's every 10 minutes. The key is to keep hitting it.

Résumé Oxygen

How do you get 25 years of experience onto a two-page résumé? You don't. So don't even try it.

No one is impressed by a two-page résumé in 8-point type with quarter-inch margins - because no one will read it. I'm exaggerating - a bit. But no one, except maybe your mother, will read a wall of text that blathers on about you.

Invite the reader in with the gift of white space - the most important element in design. White space is like oxygen. Without it, you can't read.

Use subheads, bullets and space between sections. Each one is a breath of fresh air encouraging the potential employer to read on and soak up your experience.

Form Follows Function

I'm an advocate of non-traditional résumés, especially for people in creative professions, but form must follow function.

Don't make me work for it. I need to be able to understand it at a glance or a quick skim, not by deciphering the Rosetta stone.

A cool-looking résumé may initially attract attention, but it won't necessarily land you an interview. It's like seeing a really entertaining ad, but then you can't remember the name of the product. (I would have included an example, but I can't think of any.)

A résumé should communicate in both design and content. These résumés are fun to look at, but some are more functional than others. And a typo is never good, especially not in a headline illustration.

Pre-Plan Your New Year's Resolution

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